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I’m half way through the description of a hilarious old British advert – featuring a Ken doll who stares despondently down at his crotch as a negligée-clad blonde lounges on a bed behind – when I realise two things: this is not the right time for a garbled, semi-sexual, anecdote about dolls, and Robert Best, Mattel’s top doll creator and designer, is not the right man to be telling it to.

It is, as they say here in LA about everything (but kale): ‘inappropriate.’ And now more than ever, on the eve of her 60th birthday, Barbie yearns for propriety.